Filamentary materials such as wires, cables and the like are typically available to electricians or technicians in two forms, on reels or within non-reel cartons. The use of reels for the storage, transportation and dispensing of wire or cable is well known in the art. Presently, when electricians wish to dispense wire via a reel, they might attach the reel to a horizontal shaft of a pulling rack. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 7,124,980. An electrician would then be able to pull the wire or cable tangentially off the reel.
However, as an electrician pulls the wire, the entire reel rotates and develops momentum. As a result, when the electrician stops pulling, the reel will continue to spin and release wire. The extra wire will often tangle or kink, requiring the electrician to untangle the wire and recoil the excess back on to the reel. Another problem with reel packages is disposal of the empty reel after all the wire has been removed.
Non-reel cartons eliminate the need for a reel and the attendant problem of recoiling. These cartons are sometimes also referred to as speed out cartons. Non-reel cartons utilize either conventional cardboard cartons or specialized cartons with dispensing guides. A single strand, or a multiconductor cable, of material is coiled with an open center (“air core”) and then placed into the carton. The strand is then dispensed through an opening in a wall of the carton. The coil is unwound from the center or innermost strand without rotating the entire coil. See Wise U.S. Pat. No. 4,019,636 (which is incorporated herein by reference).
While non-reel cartons eliminate the unraveling and recoiling problems associated with reels, these cartons have their own problems. For example, when a coil is unwound from the center of a carton placed on the floor, resistance to uncoiling can develop that causes the entire carton to slide in the direction of dispensing. This is especially true when the wire is required to make sharp bends as it feeds through a payout tube in the side of the carton. Any tangling of the wire within the carton exacerbates this problem.
Another problem with non-reel cartons has more to do with common industry practice than with the carton itself. Many electricians prefer to use a portable wire pulling rack on which they can mount several different sizes, types and colors of wire. This provides ready access to whatever type of wire is needed for a particular job. The pulling racks typically have one or more shafts on which are mounted reel type wire packages. Non-reel cartons have no structure that enables them to be mounted on such a rack. If a hole is punched by the electrician in the non-reel carton to admit the shaft, there is a risk that doing so will damage the contents of the carton. Further, even if a shaft hole is successfully formed in the carton, the carton is not strong enough to support the weight of a full coil of wire on a shaft. Pulling forces would further degrade such a jury-rigged carton.
Another problem with existing non-reel cartons is the tendency of the cartons to tear at hand-hole openings. Such openings are provided to make it easy to grasp the carton and carry it. Often users will attempt to use one hand only to lift and carry the carton by the hand-hole opening. Depending on the contents of the carton, this can cause the carton to fail in the area surrounding the opening. The hand-hole then becomes useless and the carton must thereafter be lifted from the bottom, usually using two hands. Hand-hole failure can be a particular problem if the carton has been allowed to become damp or wet. Accordingly, non-reel cartons have been improved to overcome these shortcomings by providing an adapter for non-reel cartons that allows such cartons to be used on a wire pulling rack. Improved non-reel cartons as just described are set forth in U.S. Patent Publication No. US-2007-0215502-A1, published Sep. 20, 2007, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/635,184, filed Dec. 10, 2009, the disclosures of both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
As mentioned above, one of the challenges of a non-reel carton is providing a way to mount it on a shaft of a wire dispensing cart or rack. The above-referenced patent applications address this issue by providing a carton with a reinforcing adapter. The adapter reinforces those portions of the carton which engage the shaft, thereby allowing the carton to support the weight of a full coil of wire while mounted on a shaft of a wire dispensing cart or rack. The adapter also reinforces handhold openings formed in the carton. In addition to reinforcing the carton, the adapter provides an interior, separating wall or partition that isolates the coil-receiving cavity of the carton from the shaft-receiving channel or sleeve where a shaft may protrude through the carton. While the adapter and carton may be formed from a common blank of sheet material (such as corrugated paperboard or the like), setting up the carton and installing the adapter requires separation of the adapter blank from the carton blank. The adapter and carton are then separately set up, after which the adapter is installed in the carton. For most applications this arrangement is perfectly adequate.
However, the rack-mountable, non-reel cartons shown in U.S. Patent Publication No. US-2007-0215502-A1 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/635,184 are not optimized for use in a fully automated environment such as those utilizing a D-2000 machine available from Reelex Packaging Solutions, Inc. of Patterson, N.Y. A machine of this type is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,766,627, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. In such an environment it is desired to use a single machine to both wind the wire coils and package them in a carton, ready for shipment, with no intervention on the part of an operator.
Prior cartons that are capable of automated setup, such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,766,627, are unable to be used with a wire dispensing rack or cart. Thus, obtaining the benefits of fully automated packaging have come at the expense of producing a less capable carton.